Robert Grant Irving is an author and lecturer specializing in the history of art and architecture of Britain and the British Empire.
His book Indian Summer: Lutyens, Baker, and Imperial Delhi (Yale University Press, 1981 and Oxford University Press, 1982) is the story of the creation of New Delhi from 1911 to 1931, the grandest architectural undertaking in the history of the British Empire.
He has held research grants in India, Africa, Britain, and the United States, including a Fulbright Scholarship and Fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, American Institute of Indian Studies, American Council of Learned Societies, Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
The airline permitted Irving to visit John F. Kennedy Airport to search through 16 acres (not 60, as stated in a news article) of unclaimed luggage.
Irving filed a successful $15,000 (not $35,000, as stated in a press article) lawsuit to recoup expenses accrued on his return to India to redo his entire research and photography.